Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

I really liked this 2013 thread, so I was wondering what cool parts teams have made this year. For those of us who didn't have much time to wander through the pits this year and check out all the neat parts, let's see some cool parts!

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

http://imgur.com/4kqkX82
Upper case for out swerve drive. Manually machined all holes located to +- .0015 All bearing press fits +-.001 (on this one some were emergency made). Weight loss is weight loss so not to accurate i suck at doing x/y axis at the same time.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Tyler, can you please upload that image to a website like imgur and link it?

Also, /thread. Beautiful part.

-Nick

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/...G?1391455 076

Some of our "raw", un-anodized parts. The OP of the 2013 thread will probably post the high-res individual part pictures later.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

That's a pretty "raw" photo of our messy workbench too. Quality... ;)

Here's a couple photos of the parts in finished form, that I've previously uploaded to CD media.





And I have probably a dozen more photos of a similar style, but I figured I'd let others post some first.

In the attachment is a photo of some non-FRC parts I've been working on recently. Very simple 2-operation parts.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Just curious, how much do you usually spend on just stock aluminuim billets for wheels and stuff? You must go through a ton of material (and really thick material too) to make all those parts. They sure are beautiful though, I love how alu billet machined parts look.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

We paid $243 for a 2"x4" bar (12') of 6061 that we used to make wheels. That was part of a ~600 lb order. Probably would have been substantially cheaper if we pushed our order up to the 1000-1500 lb range, which is what it often is at the beginning of the season.

Still not bad at ~$2.10/lb though.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

What makes you use rectangular stock instead of a large round?

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Way faster and easier IMO.

With Round Stock:

-Cut Pieces to length
-Lathe one side flat
-Machine Softjaw for Both Side's/Flip

With Flat Bar:

-Cut to approximate length, depending on cam +- .25".
-No special jaw on the initial machining, will need one for the flipping of the wheel.

Also why would you use Round over Rect. Stock?

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Everything RC said. The only reason to use round would be if you're using a CNC lathe for the first operation.

large diameter round is more expensive than rectangle and you can get into trouble if you don't have a good saw. Any taper in your cut is basically irrelevant with a rectangular block, but is going to cause excess material and time to be wasted with round stock. If you had a cold saw or a really good horizontal bandsaw, you could probably cut square within .001-.005 and go directly into the mill, but like RC said you'd have to cut soft jaws (or use a 3 jaw chuck or something). Plus cutting through a 4" diameter round with the typical bandsaw owned by a FRC team is going to take ages.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Not to derail the thread but it's a good discussion. When we make round parts, I almost always go with round stock, and no lathe operations. Our horizontal bandsaw has actually been holding +/- .005 lately. It takes me 3 minutes to cut a 3.5" round using a (too fine) 14 TPI blade. It's a snap (2 minutes) to machine some softjaws to hold it. And by using round that is just slightly larger than the finished part, I'm not paying for much bar stock I know will just be turned to chips, and I'm reducing machine cycle time because I don't have to machine away that extra stock. We pay between $1.89 and $3.69 per pound depending on the shape and supplier. Unless I need it same day, I'm usually paying around $2.00 per pound. The 12 foot bar I just bought of 6061-T6 3.5" dia round was $300, taxed and delivered to my shop floor.

Okay, now back to the pictures.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Kitty!



The somewhat short backstory; in 2013 season we ended up with a critical part on the robot that vaguely resembled a cats head. Someone decided to draw eyes and whiskers on it and it was called 'The Kitty' for the rest of the season with much affection. 2014 had no kitty shaped parts and everyone was disappointed (well, I was). We opted to make some heavier brackets after seeing some worrisome bending at a week zero but ran out of shop time to do it. I took a little time out of my workday to machine them as withholding allowance and decided to work in the kitty shape and face as a surprise. Some of my wife's jewelry enamel filled in the detail. It accomplished nothing practical, but everyone seemed to enjoy them. I'm not sure if my fellow coaches will ever fully trust me to make parts without supervision again, but hey, worth it.

Most of the serious machining 95 did this past season can be seen in this thread.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

This picture really doesn't do the arm justice, I'll see if I can get a closer one anywhere. This thing really was a beast when it worked though.

http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/p.../2014/5791.jpg

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

I was sad to find out that the original "Show off your machining" thread was closed, so I guess I'll have to settle for reviving this one... https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...ff&oe=56B2EC36
It's the back plate of an off season WCD gearbox.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Can you describe the machining operations for this? What size bits were you using? What cutting speeds and feeds? How long did the machining process take?

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Looks like it was water jetted.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Nothing crazy machining wise but this assembly was designed and machined in just over 2 hours. The delrin bushing was machined in that time too. I was pretty proud of how fast we were able to iterate our design in 2015.
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...94&oe=56F1DEB7

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

I can't tell anymore. I remember when waterjet produced distinctive edges but it seems like that's not the case anymore.

I'm eager to see where we end up in a year since we've added a CNC mill and lathe to our shop this year. Trying to get students to start using them this year and get shop supervisor more involved with the team.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

It still produces a very distinctive edge. It's matte and speckled. Almost "frosty" looking

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Here are a few pictures some neat parts/assemblies on our 15 bot.



https://goo.gl/photos/3S7NUVqLZMdKgeDZ9
https://goo.gl/photos/SVonUkqnnNMD18Py9

The second picture is of our elevator drive transmission, which was designed to be easy to swap out. The entire assembly is mounted on a 1/4" aluminum plate and drops out of the robot with three bolts. Then, the two pieces of square tubing can be unscrewed from the plate. The box on the left has a shaft coupler to allow the versaplanetary to be swapped quickly and the box on the right has a 10:1 worm reduction.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

This plate was in fact cut on a Haas CNC mill. Machining credit goes to wafertech, our generous sponsor.

Its possible that the white paper background of this photo is making the shiny edges seem dull.

As I was not the machinist on this project, I can't give you the exact numbers. But I was there while this was being made and I can tell you what I remember the machinist saying. Something like 5000 rpm spindle speed with 12 ipm feed rate. The bit was .25" two flute end mill, and I'm pretty sure it was HSS. They did the thickness of the .25" plate in a few separate passes.

Oh! I just thought the metal our waterjet sponsor used had a weird composition. He did supply us with free 7075 aluminum parts once though so it didn't seem that far off.

Why does it do that?

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

It's because water jetting doesn't rely on the water to cut, but rather the abrasive that is mixed in with the water. This means you'll get a more dull and speckled edge instead of the shiny edge like you would from an endmill or chop saw blade that relies on a sharp cutting edge.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

The water jet has very very tiny Sand particles in the water. If you go into a place with a water jet you will see pallets of sand. It uses a very high pressure (approx 60 000psi) to push the sand and water through a very small hole in a nozzle. The water/sand creates that weird edge because it is essentially sanding it's way through the metal.

Here's a video explaining it

Thanks.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Our CNC machining and work isn't high tier complexity. We're working on a metric gearbox and shifter option. (Normal ballshifter and/or swerve shifter)

Here is some machining work from last season:

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Just use the other side of the ruler. ;)

Nice parts though! I still maintain that you guys make gorgeous robots.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

We asked for a 3" hole. Everyone was pretty excited when this happened.

-Hugh

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

That sure is pretty. Is the last part steel/stainless?

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

:D
It's aluminum with brass IIRC, where the 2 vertical axles are stainless.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Here is some parts we machined this year in house. All parts were machined on a HAAS TM-1 by a student.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Your entire robot this year was incredibly well machined. I would be interested in seeing pictures of your setup and more parts.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

This work, is........... tolerable.:cool:

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Hey, who took my caliper from my toolbox? Every one of those things I have purchased over the years has had the plastic over the LCD crack in that same pattern.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

Here is the current setup of our shop. If you want to see anymore pictures just let me know. All my photos or parts have too large of a file size so I am currently resaving them as a smaller file and will post those later.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

where is this machine shop with the TL-1 ?

is that a high school ?

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

This is actually a high school classroom used to teach an engineering pathway at John F. Kennedy High School. Although it is also used as the habitat for the robotics team.

Re: Show off Your Machining! 2014
 

That's what I needed to know. I saw the TL-1 sitting in there and was wondering if that was a high school or not.